WordPress 2.7 and XML Sitemaps
By Matt McGee on Aug 4, 2008 | comments (8)
My eyes opened wide and my eyebrows raised high while reading this list of planned features in WordPress 2.7 on the Weblog Tools Collection blog. Tucked down in the middle of an otherwise uneventful list is this item:
Default Sitemaps – WordPress 2.7 will include a default sitemap creator, which will create Google XML sitemaps for your blog.
As someone who hates XML Sitemaps and is using WordPress on about a dozen blogs, I sure hope that “feature” (using the term loosely) can be turned off easily. Because, as I’ve said before, XML Sitemaps are the most overrated SEO tactic ever.
You Might Also Like These Posts:
- XML Sitemaps: The Most Overrated SEO Tactic Ever
Whenever I take part in a Site Review session at some conference, one of my fellow panelists will inevitably tell... - Hey Google: Not Having an XML Sitemap is Not an Error
This has been driving me crazy for a while now, and the only way to stop being driven crazy may... - Sitemaps not just for Google anymore…
While I haven’t personally had much reason to use the Google Sitemaps tool/service, I’m betting a lot of you do... - An “If/Then” for WordPress Bloggers
IF you run a WordPress blog, and IF you believe you do or will get a fair amount of traffic...
On Aug 5, 2008, Marcel Feenstra said:
One potential “problem” with XML sitemaps is that mainly the more SEO savvy tend to use them, so they *may* raise a red flag with search engines. However, if they become a standard “feature” of WordPress, they are much *less* likely to be viewed as “negative” IMO!
On Aug 5, 2008, Browser said:
I hope they will release 2.6.1 before 2.7
On Aug 5, 2008, Rajesh said:
Marcel, Funny!!! Do you think that search engines will be able to distinguish between what comes out of the wordpress core and what comes out of the plugin factory? do you think that they will treat what comes out of wordpress core as authentic?
On Aug 5, 2008, Marcel Feenstra said:
@Rajesh: I meant that, currently, XML sitemaps are used by relatively *few* sites; and I suspect that there is a fairly high correlation between the use of XML sitemaps and the site owners’ grasp of SEO-related techniques.
If, in the future, many/most/all WP based sites start using sitemaps, it would be harder for search engines to make inferences regarding the site owners’ “innocence” based on just their presence…
On Aug 5, 2008, ADCF said:
I don’t understand your disdain for XML site maps. They are part of webmaster tools so how is that a bad thing?
This is the first that I have ever read about anyone who thinks they are a bad thing. If they are bad why are they important to Google?
On Aug 5, 2008, Matt McGee said:
ADCF – if you click through to read the article I referenced above, you’ll understand my disdain for XML Sitemaps. Believe it or not, not everything included in webmaster central has value.
On Aug 8, 2008, Justin Briggs said:
I’ve always been one to support sitemaps, but I like your post about why you hate them, and the clip in the SEO Moz video was good.
I think sitemap could be responsible with some of the problems one of my sites might be having. It has a lot of low quality pages, that would have prob been ignored if I hadn’t used a sitemap. I’m going to test the removal of the sitemap, and see what effect it has.
On Aug 9, 2008, Matt McGee said:
Hey Justin — I’d love to know how your test turns out. Leave another comment if you get a chance – thanks!